German finance minister: European unity 'best precaution'

BERLIN (AP) — Germany's finance minister says European unity is "the best precaution for our 21st century" and is suggesting that the eurozone rescue fund could be turned into a sort of "European Monetary Fund."

Wolfgang Schaeuble, one of Germany's most influential politicians, wrote in Monday's edition of the daily Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung: "European unification is perhaps the best idea that the Europeans had in the 20th century."

The troubled European Union will celebrate the 60th anniversary of the bloc's founding Treaty of Rome this weekend.

Schaeuble said the eurozone fund, the European Stability Mechanism, could be put in a position to identify and oversee risks in member countries and manage those risks. He advocated "a transparent and predictable mechanism for restructuring public debt."